24.07.07 - It Takes Our Village | Pauline Buma
Today I can sit here and say I am by nature a very slow learner. I'm no expert on faith and certainly not on theology but I'm standing firm in the truth that God is a God of much grace, unending patience and unconditional love. It's my prayer today that as I share how God is working in my life, you will hear something in the words that Jesus is speaking to you. He's speaking to me, to you and to each 1 of us. My natural, default tendencies include many things.
Speaker 1:Among many things, unhealthy addictive patterns and a super big need to be loved and liked by everyone. These tendencies translate into a prideful superiority with a controlling edge. It's a dark side that I'm not proud of. These tendencies grew into a fierce independence and I learned to rely on myself to get things done. And to get them done in a way that I thought they should be done.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. That was the issue. It was it was determining what was right or not right from my own understanding and then I began to measure use those measurements to judge others. It's a dark side that's not what God asks me to do. From the world's perspective I rose to challenge.
Speaker 1:I moved up by positions of influence. I learned how to show people what they wanted to see and I learned how to build strong emotional boundaries to protect what I did not want others to see. For all intents and purposes though, it appeared to work for me. But then, you know, life happens. Life sends curve balls that change what we know, what is comfortable to us, what is familiar and what we expect from life.
Speaker 1:From where I sit, I reflect back and see how circumstances in my life highlighted areas that I needed to work on and I still need to work on. Circumstances though uncomfortable, painful and most often not welcomed, I've and have the potential to break us or over time move us into a better place. Though we don't choose circumstances that are thrown our way, we do have a choice on how we respond to these circumstances. I was in my thirties when 2 significant events occurred. Together, they were used to change the trajectory of my life.
Speaker 1:1, a physical healing and the second, a spiritual awakening. Since my teens, I've been living with the physical condition that limited my world and kept me from fully engaging in life. I quietly lived with it, privately carrying the weight of the limitations and emotionally holding back from all that life had to give. In my early thirties an unexpected peak in the condition resulted in emergency surgery which ultimately corrected the condition. I was healed.
Speaker 1:I received a new lease on life. Well, at least a new lease on physical life. 3 years later, I was invited to attend a retreat. I accepted the invitation but I went with great resistance. Remember my default tendency is a strong sense of knowing what is right and what is not right for my understanding.
Speaker 1:I'd applied that perspective to all of life including my understanding of what and who God is. Going to to a retreat which was not sponsored by a faith entity known to me, meaning not the same faith background that I came from, was very uncomfortable for me. However, I trusted the friends who had invited me so I went, fully resistant and with a full armor of boundaries to protect But God had different plans for me. The first night was a sleepless night and from the moment I laid down, I was struggling with why I had actually come here. I was in battle with myself but I had nowhere to go.
Speaker 1:I was alone or so I thought. For the first time in my life I reached out to God and over a long conversation and dark hours I surrendered and he came through. Long story short, the 2 day retreat was used to blow apart some of the deep deep misunderstandings that I had about God and, and understandings of who I was and who others were. I had an awakening that changed the course of my faith journey. For about 10 years after those 2 events in my life, I went through a very long dry season.
Speaker 1:It was a desert season that forced me to rethink who I was and changed my faith from being a head knowledge into a heart condition. There are many circumstances after the dry season that continue to shape and grow me and I expect many more will come. God's not done with his work in me. I am a slow learner and very resistant to change, so moving from a head to a heart is a lifelong process that underlines my responses to each and every circumstances that I face. Breaking down my default setting of self righteous judgement of others based on my standards is an ongoing area that God is working with in my life.
Speaker 1:It's he's turning it upside down, what I thought and I understood to be true and he's right sizing it into his truth. Sometime back, I came across a definition of sick sin that has stuck with me. I don't recall the source or what brought it to my attention but it has over time been a very useful tool for me to accept and understand sin in my life. Sin, the definition goes, is anything that takes my attention away from God as the center of my life. Anything that takes away my attention from God as the center of my life.
Speaker 1:There's no waiting of sin, meaning 1 sin or another has the same common impact. All sin distracts me and all sin takes my eyes away from God as the center of my being and I become motivated by a shiny distraction or anything that is not him that's in front of me. I have sin in my life and I'm guilty of choosing the distraction that replaces God as a sinner as a sinner. And that has consequences whether it be for the moment or for a long season, whether I'm conscious of it or whether I am not, sin has consequences and consequences are negative in nature. It dulls my senses.
Speaker 1:I rationalize and I convince convince myself that that everything's okay and I bury it sometimes because it's just a lot easier than dealing with it. My my senses are dulled by the reality and the long term effect of being motivated by anything else but God. Until I realize and accept the impact of sin in my life, I cannot see or acknowledge the presence and the holiness of God. Over time, God kept shining a light on that sin of pride in my life and as I became attentive to who He is, I began to realize that pride has buried 1 very big truth of God in in my life. I had moved aside the truth that I have been created in the image of God.
Speaker 1:In the image of a God who loves me unconditionally, a God who waits patiently, a God who always stands with his arms wide open and welcomes us back. If you've been around here for the past few months, you know we've had several series that focused on Jesus' life in this earth. We've heard the I am series and we've heard the series of the miraculous healings he did. There was so much in these 2 series that dusted off and refreshed and expanded my understanding of who he is. I was particularly impacted by his invitation to come.
Speaker 1:Come, come and see. Jesus invites us, come. It's an invitation, it's not a command. In Jesus we have each been given the gift of redemption of sin. He's not holding the long list of distractions that I have chosen or that we have chosen, he's just holding out that invitation to come.
Speaker 1:Come, come and see. Come and spend time with me and get to know who I am. It's an invitation that each of us has a choice to respond. Each time we we we say yes, he reveals just a little bit more of who he is especially when we linger and stay. Come and see who I am, see who I created you to be, Pay attention and notice that I'm all around you.
Speaker 1:I take every step with you right there. I'm there right with you and I live in you. When I stand in that truth that I am created in the image of God, I realize that we're all created in the image of God. All people are created in the image of God. And I begin to see in the eyes of those around me a person who is created in the image of God.
Speaker 1:When I sit beside a grieving friend, I see Jesus holding her close saying, you are my loved 1. When I sit beside a friend who's processing the news of yet just another frightening life threatening diagnosis, I hear Jesus crying, you are my loved 1. When I stand beside a hurting person being denied service because she's marginalized by society, I hear Jesus shouting, this is my loved 1. And when I walk beside someone whose whole world has fallen apart, everywhere, everything known and anticipated to be has been changed in a split second and I see Jesus weeping, this is my beloved. And when I find myself in a hard place with a difficult person for me to love, I remind myself that Jesus is calling me out.
Speaker 1:Remember this too is my beloved 1. There are many times in my life when pride has prevented me to know and acknowledge that all people are created in the image of God. All people are loved by God, not because of what we do or what we don't do, but because he has created us in his image and he loves us unconditionally. So now that God has revealed himself to me in this way, I can no longer choose to say, yep, I'm coming but but not right now. God's asking me to be present right now, right here and he's asking me to be his hands and feet right now, right where I find myself.
Speaker 1:The least I can do or maybe I should say the only thing I can do is to turn from distractions and keep my eyes on him and honor him in my responses and choices. When I keep my eyes on Jesus, he creates space in my life to allow his love to be multiplied through me to anyone that comes across my path, anyone. When I live with the moment when I live at the moment with an open heart and open hands, I find something holy happens. My need to be liked by others no longer is the motivation and I am motivated by the fact that God is present. He's in every circumstance.
Speaker 1:He's in the circumstance of the moment and I choose when I choose to live in that truth and let all other distractions become secondary, the long term consequences begin to loosen my clenched clenched fists of full of pride, full of regrets of the past and full of worries of the future. Not only can I live without not only can I not live without him, I cannot afford to live with clenched fists? God's counting on me to get over myself. Get over myself and be available right here, right now in this space, in this community of image bearers. He needs me and he needs us.
Speaker 1:Consider the choices you're taking to Jesus invitation in your life. What holds you back from becoming more curious to see Jesus in a new way? What holds you what distracts you from keeping your eyes on him and trusting him and living in the confidence of his love for you? In closing, I wanna share a piece, from Paul's letter to the Corinthians. In his second letter to his friends in Corinth, we find Paul in a jail cell.
Speaker 1:It's not the best of any circumstance as you can imagine, but even in that circumstance, Paul remains with his eyes on Jesus and he writes the the this encouragement to his friends working in the field. Listen and hear an encouragement for you personally today and also for us as a church family right here and right now. Companions, as we are in this work with you, we beg you to please don't squander 1 bit of this marvelous life that God has given us. God reminds us, I heard your call in the nick of time. The day you needed me, I was there to help.
Speaker 1:Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped. Don't put it off. Don't frustrate God God's work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we're doing. Our work as God's servants gets validated or not in the details. People are watching us was as we stay our post alertly, unswervingly, in hard times, in tough times, working late, working without eating, working with a pure heart, clear head, steady hand in gentleness, holiness and honest love.
Speaker 1:When we're telling the truth and when God's showing his power, when we're doing our best setting things right and when we're praised and when we're blamed, slandered and honored true to our word though distrusted, ignored by the world but recognized by God, terrifically alive though rumored to be dead. Beaten within an inch of our lives but refusing to die, immersed in tears yet always filled with deep joy, living on handouts yet enriching many, having nothing, having it all. Dear, dear friends, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide open spacious life. We didn't fence you in. It's the small the smallness that you feel comes from within you.
Speaker 1:Your lives aren't small, but we're living them in a small way. I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives, live openly and expansively. Would you join with me in prayer. Father God, I thank you for giving me the courage to sit in front of friends and just give a little window into what my life has what you have done in my life.
Speaker 1:We thank you for your incredible grace, patience, and unconditional love. And I pray that each person here today may may just have had a moment to to hear what you're saying to them. Work your miracle, Lord, through these words and then touch us all and just keep your arms wide open so that love may flow through each 1 of us to the people that you have placed in front of us. We thank you. We love you in Jesus name.
Speaker 1:Amen.
